OK, here's my version of the history of the Flying Trifle.
It all started with John Lobb and Martin Harrison, a pair of Cherub sailors at Royal Vic YC on the Isle of Wight in the 1980's. John did a few seasons in Moths, and when he came back to Cherubs in the early '90's he found them too "controllable" by comparison. At the legendary '91 Nationals at Royal Torbay YC John and Martin got chatting to another Cherub sailor called Christian Stimpson who was also a professional yacht designer. They asked Chris to design them a boat with the philosophy that a lot of speed could be extracted from the new design at the expense of control. They also wanted it optimised for wind conditions at the upper end of the range.
Later that evening there was a Civic Reception by the Mayor of Torquay to welcome the Cherub fleet. This happened to coincide with a huge food fight which had broken out, fuelled by the wine in half-pint glasses which the yacht club were serving up. In the middle of all this Chris Stimpson got hit in the face by a large lump of Flying Trifle, hence the new design got its name.
A week or 2 later John and Martin were gathered round Chris's computer to finalise the design. Rumour has it that there was a lot of "Are you sure about that guys?" From Chris, and about the same "Yeah, just do it!" from the others. John and Martin built 2652 over the winter, and the original Flying Trifle was launched in time for the '92 Nationals. Patrick Cunningham, another IOW sailor took the jig and built 2654 shortly after.
2652 was fast straight out of the box and did well at the '92 Nats. The design is characterised by its extremely low rocker and concave flared topsides. This makes it particularly fast on a reach or downwind. It's also a reasonably good weight carrier. The downside of the low rocker is twofold. It exacerbates the on/off nature of Cherub performance, making it somewhat slower in sub-planing conditions. It also tends to cause sudden and unexpected nose-dives. This was beautifully described by the Trims as "Alien Abduction", the phenomenon whereby you're planing along at warp speed one moment, and find yourself swimming in the sea the next without being quite sure how you got there.
It may not be the best all-round performer, but in terms of excitement per pound it's a difficult boat to beat.
